RPS: He's Not Kinky, He's Your Governor (Jensen/Jared)
He's Not Kinky, He's Your Governor, ii
(being the second part of the 'what if they were just normal guys?' AU)
Continued from part one.
After the whole debacle thing with Jared, where he pretends like nothing happened between them and he somehow, impossibly, chooses not to remember their night of fantastic, mind-blowing sex, Jensen decides that it's maybe time to try out girls for a while. It helps that the new waitress at work, Tania, is conveniently ignoring all the gay vibes Jensen knows he exudes in like, fucking droves, or maybe waves, because he's pretty sure vibes can't grammatically exude in waves, but whatever. Point is. Point is, Tania is the most seriously clueless person Jensen's ever met, what with the not getting how obviously gay he is, but also with the way she dresses and how she still thinks it's trendy to dye her hair pink, so when she asks him out, he thinks, What the hell? And says yes.
And really, being straight is sort of cool. They go to the movies and no one stares at them. He can kiss her when they're standing in line for a show without worrying that some redneck is going to attack him with a baseball bat or a .44 later. He doesn't, but he could, if he wanted. Jensen tries not to consider the lack of kissing thing, or the fact that he has no desire whatsoever to touch her in a sexual manner. They're just going slow, he tells himself, because he's a gentleman. Er. And stuff.
"So, you're telling me you haven't even kissed?" Jared says, picking up an apple and examining it carefully for bruising. Jensen makes a face and sighs heavily. He's feeling very put upon, and damn Jared and his blackmailing tactics, getting him to go to the farmer's market, which he hates, just so he can watch Jared be really anal about his fruit and end up not buying anything anyway. It's not that he has anything against farmers, though. Jensen likes farmers, he grew up around farmers. But the market smells, to be honest, and there are always those hippy ladies trying to sell you their crappy tie-dyed clothing they made themselves. Jensen prefers machine-made clothes. And besides which, he doesn't trust hippies.
"What? No. I mean, we've kissed. Just not, you know, kissed. I told you, we're taking things slow. She's like, all shy or something."
"Uh huh. I'm sure that's it, Jen. Or-and this is just a theory-it could be that you're gay."
"Whatever, Mr. I Used to Date Women And Am Only Recently Gay. Who says I'm completely, one hundred percent, all the way gay? Maybe I'm only like, seventy three percent gay. And that means I'm just like, wasting the other twenty-three percent."
"Seventeen. And also? It doesn't work that way. I think it's disgusting, what you're doing to that poor girl."
"I'm not doing anything!"
"That's the point, dude. You're gonna give her a complex or something."
"Shut up. I can totally be straight. I like her. We like, hold hands and shit. We could like, get married someday maybe, and be all suburban normal people and live in Pflugerville and our kids could play football. I could get one of those buttons with our son's face on it that lights up and everything."
"You do know that having kids requires that you actually, like, fuck this chick, right?"
"You're such an asshole, Jared. Christ!"
"I'm just sayin.' Gotta recreate to procreate."
"Who says that? Do people say that? Is that like, a thing people say? Because if it is, people need to say something different, because that is totally lame."
"Avoidance is the second stage, dude."
"The second stage of what?"
Jared examines another apple, frowns, rubs at a spot with his t-shirt, and puts it back in the bin. "Exactly."
*
"See, this is what I'm talking about," Jared says, grunting a little as they haul the groceries up the steps to their apartment. "You're so fucking shallow, dude. You can't even see how pretending to be straight is like, an insult to everyone you know."
"I'm not shallow!" Jensen says. He thinks about it a little. He cares about things. Like. Like who's going to win this cycle of America's Next Top Model (the bulimic twin, he hopes, because that picture rocked) and whether the Killers are coming to Austin on tour this time. Oh. Right. "Oh. Right. Okay well, yeah, maybe, but that doesn't mean I don't care about other stuff."
"Like what, Jensen? You don't even vote. You wouldn't even come to Pride with me last month, and there were parades full of hot, half naked guys there."
"I care about my friends. And um. My family, and stuff."
"When's the last time you talked to Chris?"
"Well. Okay but, I'm not the one who pretends we never had awesome, mind-blowing sex. So there."
Jared rolls his eyes and starts putting groceries away. He slams the cabinet doors open and shut, and it's very loud. "Dude, I told you. We're just different. I think this proves it. You don't care about anything important."
"Wait-that's why? Seriously? Jared, that's so fucking retarded. You're honestly telling me that the reason you won't have sex with me again is because I'm not all political and shit?"
"What part of 'You're too shallow' was unclear?"
"Dude, I thought you were joking. I mean, not ha-ha joking, but you know. Just making shit up because you didn't want to like, ruin our friendship or something."
"See, this is what I mean. You're like a fucking alien, man. Let's. Look, let's just drop it. I can't even hardly remember it, anyway. We were so wasted. Let's just. Wanna play some Halo?"
"No," Jensen says, but he turns on the Xbox and slumps down into the couch anyway. He doesn't think about what Jared said, even though he's sure Jared is lying because no one can fuck like that and just forget about it. Besides, Jensen has a girlfriend. It doesn't matter anyway.
*
In retrospect, taking Tania to Chris and Steve's show that night probably was not his best idea ever.
"So, you know he's gay, right?" Chris says, taking a long swallow from his beer. Tania just blinks.
"Okay," she says, and shrugs. "So, you know you're an asshole, right?"
Chris grins and raises his beer to her. "Amen, sister. A-fucking-men. I like her, Jenny. She's a keeper."
Jensen does what he usually does in situations like this, which is pretend that nothing ever happened and hope that the other parties involved have conveniently contracted amnesia. He could explain himself, but really, what would be the point, and besides which, Tania doesn't seem terribly surprised and she doesn't treat him any differently, either. They watch the show, and Mike has to leave halfway through for some balloon-twisting gig (which, who does that as a job, really? Except that now, Mike can always make these awesome balloon crowns that are really pretty impressive, if incredibly gay), so Tommy ends up telling Tania about his latest fluffing job and the disgusting old man he had to blow for like ten years just to get him hard.
Tania just smiles and nods and commiserates about guys who take forever and aching jaws and stuff (which never happens to Jensen, he thinks, probably because he's an amazing cocksucker and Tommy and Tania both obviously need lessons or something), and she's cool. She's amazingly cool, except that when Jensen tries to kiss her goodnight at her door, and not even slipping her the tongue because he's polite and a gentleman and shit, she turns her head so he just gets her cheek, and he doesn't feel relieved at all. Nope.
"Listen, Jensen. I really like you. But you know we're just friends, right?" She laughs. "I mean-come on."
Jensen narrows his eyes. He's not glaring, because that would be rude, especially to the future mother of his unborn but no doubt gorgeous children, but his eyes are maybe slitted, and he's feeling sort of surly. He thinks she's maybe dumping him, which is just. No.
"Come on, what? We're. I thought, you know. You like me."
"Jensen, you're gay."
"I'm not! I'm totally straight. I love women. I love fu-doing stuff. With them."
"Jensen. Have you ever even had sex with a woman? You won't even kiss me."
"We kiss all the time! Like, constantly. My lips get tired, we kiss so much!"
"We've kissed three times. Without tongue."
"But. You were going to be my babies' momma. We were going to live in Pflugerville."
"You know you're insane, right?"
Jensen does glare this time, because fuck this bitch, she is so not good enough to be the mother of his theoretical children, and she laughs.
He gives her the finger. "I hate you."
She grins. "No you don't. And also-Pflugerville? Seriously?"
"I really hate you."
*
Election day is only a month away, so even though he's definitely not avoiding Jensen or anything because they're friends and that's it and the whole awkward morning-after thing is totally of the past, Jared spends all his time at the call center or volunteering for Kinky Friedman's campaign or passing out fliers for proposition six to fund the libraries, because he likes libraries, and yeah. But it's not an avoidance thing. He's just busy, and he cares about a lot of things, and this is an important election.
Jeff gave up on trying to stop Jared from coming in to the call center on his off shifts, but the night that Jared refuses to leave until he makes one more positive contact, which is taking forever because apparently everyone in the state of California is too busy watching the season premier of Lost to be willing to talk about the state of American politics or, you know, just give him some money already, Jeff freaks out.
Well, he doesn't freak out exactly. Like, not in a normal person freak out way, because Jeff is pretty much the chillest guy Jared has ever met. He's one of those guys that nothing ruffles, pretty much ever, which makes him really good at his job because he has to deal with a lot of crazy kids and angry people who no longer want anything to do with animal rights/gay rights/human rights/saving the environment and have decided to blame Jeff for their name being on the lists.
So yeah, Jeff is cool, he's chill, except that night, he freaks out a little. By which Jared means, Jeff walks over to his station, presses the 'end call' button on Jared's headset, disconnects him from the system with a few quick keystrokes, and walks away without a word.
"Dude, what the hell? I was on a call, man! You just-"
"Go home, Jared," Jeff says. He sounds tired. It's crunch time, of course he sounds tired. Which is all the more reason that Jared should stay. "Go home, and stop being such a jerk about Jensen."
"I'm not. It's not like-" He gets cut off by Jeff flicking him off and switching out the lights. Jared makes an angry sound, but really, he can't blame Jeff for wanting him out of here. It's-wow-really late, and no wonder not even the Californians were answering their phones. The bike ride home takes longer than usual because Jared can't seem to concentrate, and maybe, possibly, he might be stalling because he knows that when he gets home, Jensen will be there, and they should probably talk, or something. Jared knows he's right about this, because seriously, he can't get involved with someone who doesn't even know the difference between Kinky Friedman and Rick Perry aside from, "Dude, that's a kick ass name. If I voted, I would totally go for him." He just can't. But that doesn't make it feel good, or easy, and lately, it's getting hard to even look at Jensen. They used to be friends, and then they had to go and ruin it with great sex, and now he can't even look at him. So yeah, they need to talk. Jared wonders if he can do it with his eyes closed.
When he finally gets home, Jensen's not even there. Chad's on the couch playing Grand Theft Auto again and drinking one of Jensen's diet cokes, but Jensen's not there.
"Someone called in sick," Chad grunts, biting his lip as he pounds on the controller buttons. "He's at work. They're like, letting him wait tables or something. It was sick how excited he was about it."
"Oh," Jared says, and shrugs. "Huh." He feels itchy. Charged. He thought Jensen would be home.
"Yeah. Man, I don't know why you hang out with that kid. He's such a freak."
"Yeah," Jared says. "I think. I'm just gonna go to bed. I'm wiped, man."
Chad waves him off, not looking away from the screen. But once he's in bed, Jared just stares at the ceiling for a long time and thinks, maybe Jensen's not the one who's a freak.
*
If there's one thing Jensen really loves about working at the restaurant, it's getting paid overtime to wait tables super late at night, because hey, more money, but also, lots of cute, drunk boys who just got kicked out of the clubs. They always flirt with Jensen because he's pretty, and sometimes, if Cathy isn't there, he'll take one of them out back on his break and blow him while their food is being prepared. He always gets big tips, even though he's a shitty waiter and sometimes (read: always) drops things. Jensen likes to think it has less to do with his willingness to suck total strangers' dicks and more his charming personality. Plus, he likes to lie to himself.
There are lots of cute boys that night, and Cathy is gone, long gone, and then one of them, the one with lots of smudged eyeliner who's wearing a sleeveless shirt to show off his pretty scary-looking tattoos, stumbles up to the drinks station wanting to know where the bathroom is, so it's really sort of a matter of fate that Jensen ends up on his knees in the men's room.
And Jensen, he loves sucking dick, and this guy has a really nice one, too. If dicks could be considered pretty, this one would win like, the Miss Universe pageant for dick beauty. And it's all great, the guy isn't rude or anything, and he makes these awesome breath-hitching noises when Jensen does that thing with his tongue, except.
Except that Jensen's just not into it. Like, at all.
Here he is, with a lovely cock in his mouth and a pretty boy staring down at him like he's the best thing since the invention of the mojito, and… nothing. His dick doesn't even twitch, not even just a little, and he finds himself wishing the guy would hurry up and come already because he's got tables to wait and tips to make and-
Jensen's pretty sure this is all Jared's fault.
He can't stop thinking about Jared and his stupid lectures about being shallow and how he thinks all Jensen wants out of life is, well, this right here. Which is maybe sort of true, and he used to be more than okay with it, happy, even, or at least content, but now Jared, that little mind-fucker, has made him think there's maybe something wrong with that. Or something.
And now he can't even enjoy sucking dick, and it's all Jared's fault.
*
Chris is Jensen's best friend in the world, but really, there should be a law against aspiring musicians working at snooty, independent record stores that won't even carry the new Justin Timberlake, because it only makes them even more annoyingly arrogant. Jensen loves Chris, he really does, but him landing this job at Waterloo has made him quite possibly the most insufferable person pretty much ever to have lived. Like, imagine Jack Black's character from High Fidelity when he's all refusing to sell the old man the Stevie Wonder record (which, what's up with that, because Stevie is awesome), only multiply it times ten and you've got Chris.
He didn't used to be such a music snob asshole. Jensen still remembers 1999, when Chris was obsessed with Garth Brooks and made Jensen listen to the double live album over and over again. It's pretty much why they had to stop living together. Because if Jensen had to listen to 'The Dance' even one more time, he would've strangled Chris in his sleep. Slowly. Maybe he would've taken up the entire song just for the strangling, and that is a long ass song.
But now all Chris will listen to are bands no one's ever heard of, and he does that thing that snooty sales clerks do, where they like, judge what you're buying. Sometimes he tries to keep people from buying things by being really mean to them about it. This is what he's doing when Jensen walks into Waterloo the next day. And really, Jensen doesn't want to be there, in the den of Chris's music assholishness, but he has needs, and Jared is fucking with his head, so yeah.
"Y'all aren't really going to buy this, are you?" he's asking the teenage girl in front of the counter, who's holding her Hello Kitty purse like she maybe wants to smack Chris with it. "I mean, seriously, Panic! At the Disco? What kind of name is that for a band? With the exclamation point and everything." He shakes his head, examining the case. "Who uses punctuation in their band name? That's just lame."
"I like them," the girl says, glaring. "Just sell me the damn CD, okay?"
"With that kinda attitude, maybe I shouldn't," Chris says. "Man, look at these assholes! What kind of man wears that much eyeliner? If you're gonna go for queers in make up, honey, you should just stick with David Bowie. Plus, glitter."
"Can someone else help me? You suck. I just want my CD!"
Chris shakes his head and slips the CD beneath the counter. "Go to Target and buy it. I'm sorry, but I really can't sell that kinda trash here. It would ruin our reputation."
The girl storms off, and Jensen rolls his eyes and ducks behind the counter. "Dude, that was cruel."
"Whatever man. They suck. Probably each other."
Jensen coughs. "About that. Thanks for fucking things up with Tania the other night. She dumped me because of you, you asshole."
Chris just laughs. "Y'all were never going out, Jenny. You're a raging homosexual. I thought you'd gotten used to that fact, the number of dicks you've had in you over the years."
"You're just jealous because I never sucked yours."
Chris starts stickering a stack of CDs that he will probably later refuse to sell to people. "Nah, baby. You gotta nice mouth, but I'm more than capable of finding myself a woman for that. Because I am not a raging homosexual. Speaking of, you think Tania would go out with me?"
"You wouldn't like her. She listens to Liz Phair."
"Good point. So what're you doing here? I thought you were never setting foot in the store again after the Nick Carter Incident."
"You didn't have to tell the whole store about my… thing… when you didn't even have the CD in the first place!"
"I really did." He grins. "So, what's up? You look like hell froze over and then got reheated on your face, boy. You all right?"
"Yeah. I mean. No. Unless you think that not being able to even enjoy blowing really cute goth boys is okay. Then yeah, in which case, I'm great."
"So it's serious, then, huh?"
"It's. Remember that night? The party, and the thing with Jared?"
"The sex that he's pretending not to remember? Son, maybe that's just because you suck in bed. No pun intended."
"Shut the fuck up, dude. It's. Yeah, the sex. Only, he says that I'm like, shallow or something? And like, I don't care about anything important, or whatever?"
"Well…"
"Dude, you're my best friend! You're not supposed to agree with that shit!"
"It's not that I agree, Jenny. It's that he's sort of right. Man, never thought I'd say that. Look, we've known each other for a long time, so I know I can say this to you and you won't take it the wrong way. Jensen, you're a fucking dishwasher, man. Just think about that for a minute, okay? You wash dishes for a living. Guy like Jared, he needs more than that. He's like, passionate about shit. He likes causes. So if you want him to like you…"
"I should-what? Like, get a cause or something?"
"Or something." Chris smiles wide and nudges Jensen with his hip. "Come on now, help me get these bitches stickered, and then I can take my break. You look like you could use some ice cream. Amy's has that Guiness flavor again."
"Dude seriously?"
"Seriously."
"I love you, man."
"You bet your ass you do."
*
Jared's not avoiding Jensen on purpose anymore, but the next few weeks are so busy with the upcoming election that they don't really see each other anyway. Things at the call center are insane because seven people quit and all the new kids suck so far, so Jared's been working overtime to get the new people trained and up to scratch while still making his quota. Plus he's still volunteering for Kinky Friedman, even though it's pretty much a lost cause with the already small democratic vote split between three candidates. Fucking Rick Perry is going to get re-elected, but there's no way in hell they're going down without a fight.
That's what his generation doesn't seem to get-that it doesn't matter if you think you're going to win or lose, the process is just as important as the results. Because like, if you never exercise your rights as a citizen, than what's even the point of having them in the first place?
So Jared's not avoiding Jensen on purpose, but it's not until the night of Mike and Tommy's annual Halloween party that Jared gets to spend any significant amount of time with him.
"Dude, what are you even wearing?" Jared asks, coming out of the bathroom with his Richard Nixon mask dangling from his fingers. Jensen's lounging on the couch waiting for Jared and Chad to finish getting ready, dressed in, well, a sheet. And sandals. And he seems to have randomly gelled some leaves from Jared's fern into his hair. "Are you supposed to be like… some kind of psychotic roman toga guy?"
Jensen frowns and looks down at himself. "Oh, is this a costume party?" He grins and gives Jared the finger. "Anyway, what are you? Let me guess-dead ex-president?"
"I'm Nixon." Jared holds up the mask. "At least I tried, dude. You're just wearing a sheet."
Chad comes out of Jensen's bathroom wearing a white and pink striped suit with a giant rhinestone cross around his neck and a floppy purple hat.
"I'm a pimp," he says.
"So you're not dressing up either, huh?"
"Fuck you, Ackles, my costume rocks. Now let's go get fucked up. And can y'all refrain from having sex this time, because it's like, when you fight? I feel like my parents are getting divorced all over again, and then I cry. On the inside."
The party is in full swing when they cross the courtyard to Tommy and Mike's place. Tommy is standing by the keg dressed as Superman, or at least Jared thinks he's supposed to be Superman what with the blue bikini briefs and red cape, but he could just be still wearing his work clothes. And then Mike emerges from the back room waving a tube of lipstick triumphantly, and makes Tommy stand still while he draws a giant, wobbly 'S' on his bare chest. Mike is wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but he has a stick-on nametag that says, "Tommy."
"There," says Mike. "Now people will know who you're supposed to be. But man, Jensen. What the hell are you dressed as?"
"Is this a costume party?" Jensen says again, and Jared just knows that he's going to be hearing that all night, and he's already sick of it. On the other hand, Jensen looks way too fucking hot in that toga, and Jared finds himself wondering if Jensen's wearing anything underneath it. Except that he's totally not wondering that at all, because Jensen's is just his friend and the sex thing didn't work out because of the whole part where Jensen's is a freaking dishwasher who doesn't give a shit about anything except his next fuck, so. Yeah.
"I think we should do shots," Jared finds himself declaring, because he is most definitely not thinking about things which may or may not be beneath Jensen's toga. Like, at all. Which is how he finds himself drunk out of his mind by eleven o'clock, when Sandy shows up dressed as a dead hooker complete with a fake knife sticking out of her chest, three very cute guys trailing after her, possibly also dressed as hookers, but maybe not in costume at all.
Cute guy number one is named JT, which is slightly weird because that's what Jared's mama calls him, but he's really into animal rights and thinks factory farming is the worst thing to come out of the industrial revolution (Jared thinks it's probably nuclear weapons, but whatever), plus he's a really good kisser. Jared knows because after talking to JT for about fifteen minutes, he gets sort of grossed out hearing about the many ways in which animals are tortured so that they can become bacon or bacon-like products that he decided to shut the kid up. By kissing him. It makes sense at the time, because Jared is drunk, and the guy is hot.
There's something really hot about making out with strangers on couches at parties with like, your friends all talking and laughing and drinking around you while dressed as hookers or sometimes each other. JT is like, practically in Jared's lap, and he's hot and wearing some sort of mesh shirt that feels really cool against Jared's palms, and his tongue is hot too, and they're just kissing and kissing and it's awesome, and he doesn't think about Jensen.
*
Sandy, Jensen decides, is a total cunt and he hates her.
Normally Jensen would be happy with her bringing hot gay boys to a party, getting them trashed, and sending them off to hook up with her friends. Except when they actually accomplish said hooking up and it's not with him, and then Jared spends the night making out with some random guy who's not even half as pretty as Jensen just because he's like, into animal rights or something.
Which is totally not fair, because Jensen is trying. He's like, volunteering for this crazyass cowboy running for governor, which is all political and everything, plus Jensen knows Jared's volunteering for this guy too, so. He's been trying to orchestrate some sort of run-in, except that headquarters are so busy and Jared hasn't been in since Jensen started because of the blow up at TeleFund with all the new people, so really, the whole getting political idea has done nothing but lost Jensen precious time perfecting his Pro Skater skills, which means that now, when he finally does get to play, Chad beats him every time.
Then again, Chad is an unemployed loser who also doesn't care about shit, so at least he's not a threat for Jared's affection, which is more than Jensen can say for Animal Planet goth boy. Jensen wonders if maybe pulling a Brutus would be ill-conceived, although at least then people might get his costume.
What he does know is, he needs to be way drunker than he is right now, if he's going to have to watch this all night. It's. It's disgusting, and there are tongues involved, which he knows because he can see them. The guy looks like a terrible kisser, very sloppy on the execution and zero points for style, and really, Jensen should probably go over and save Jared from him. Jared would maybe be grateful for not having to make out with that guy anymore, which he's probably just doing because he's like, all polite and shit, and then maybe he'd make out with Jensen instead and-
"Boy, don't even think about it," Chris says from behind him, which makes Jensen screech and spill his beer.
"You fucker. I need a new drink now."
"What you need," Chris says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and leading him toward the kitchen, "is some serious tequila. Come on son, he ain't even worth it."
"Fuck you," Jensen says, and makes the mistake of looking back at the couch, where Jared's got his hand up goth boy's shirt and, yeah, he looks really into it, which makes Jensen's chest sort of burn, like he already took his shot and it's just sitting there. Jensen swallows and turns back to Chris, nods. He blinks and licks his lips and stares hard at the tequila bottle label, which has pretty colors and makes him think about the beach, which is good because he's never been to the beach with Jared. Jared doesn't surf, so he never comes with them, and that's good, that's just him and Chris and Steve and the beach and the waves and nothing to do with Jared, but his chest still feels hot and achy, so Jensen downs his shot and sucks on his lime and he doesn't look back.
Sour, he thinks, and closes his eyes.
*
Jared wakes up the next morning because someone is kicking him. No, not someone-Chad-and he has these really pointy shoes on, too. The pimp shoes. He's also dribbling water on Jared's head, and giggling to himself.
"Are you awake?" Chad asks. Kick. Kick. Dribble.
"Fuck off."
"Come on, let's go get breakfast. I'm hungry."
Jared rolls over onto his back and blinks up at the ceiling. Tommy and Mike's ceiling, because apparently he fell asleep on the floor of their kitchen, somehow, which is weird because the last thing he remembers is licking peppermint schnapps of some guy's stomach, and possibly tortured animals were involved. Hmm, no, that doesn't sound right.
"What happened to…" Jared flops his hand around. That's about all the energy he can muster. He doesn't even flinch when Chad kicks him again. He thinks that maybe the alcohol somehow paralyzed him, or at least took away his will to do things that aren't lie here and feel like he's dying, because. Yeah.
"The twink you spent all night molesting?"
"Uh. Sure."
"Don't know, don't care. Because, dude. We need pancakes! And bacon. Mmmm bacon."
"Do you even know how horrible factory farming is for the environment? And um, mean to the animals and shit?"
"The bacon is its destiny, dude. Just give in to it. Come on, seriously, let's go. I'm starving, and I am not going to Magnolia alone like a loser."
Once Jared manages to get upright, he feels a little better. They steal Mike's car (but Mike and Tommy are passed out together in Mike's room, pretty much naked, which is way more of Mike's bare ass than Jared ever wanted to see, so he doesn't think Mike will care) and drive over because it's still like eighty degrees out and there's no way Jared could operate a bike right now. Chad drives (like a crazy person), and it's only when Jared is signing their name on the waiting list that he remembers that Jensen works here.
"Dude, he's in the back if he's even here," Chad says when he notices Jared's deer-in-headlights look. Jared wishes that Chad would stop that freaky mind-reading shit. "And anyway, why do you look so freaked? He's like, your best friend, right?"
"You're my best friend." Jared really should become a politician, he thinks. He's very good at not answering questions.
"Whatever, man." Chad drops it, except that Jared should really know better, because when they finally get seated and have coffee and everything, Chad stares at him hard over his menu and just gives him that look, the one that's all, You're so full of shit, you don't even know it. Except that he sort of does.
"What?" Jared says defensively, and his eyes do not flick toward the kitchen, where Jensen may or may not be washing dishes right now.
"Look," Chad says, and sets down his menu like this is really serious. "I'm only gonna say this once, because you're my friend and no matter how fun it is to watch you be all emo tragic guy, it's getting to a psychotically annoying point. Stop being such a retard."
"Dude, that's so not cool. You can't just call people 'retards,' Chad. What if one day you do that, and that person is like, actually retarded?"
"Then I won't be wrong. But seriously, this Jensen thing, whatever it is? Get over it, man. I mean, I give him a lot of shit, right, but he's good people. Plus, I've heard he's a bunny in the sack."
"You mean tiger?"
"See? You're totally hot for him. You think he's a tiger in the sack."
"But that. Chad. It's not like that. I mean, okay, he's like, a fucking dishwasher. I mean, seriously, he washes dishes for a living. We're too different. Or whatever."
Chad looks faintly ill. "Okay, I can't believe I'm defending that douche bag, but seriously, Jared, that's your excuse? You know what I think?"
"Let me guess. Some psych 101 analysis of like, why I have intimacy issues or something?"
"Okay, good guess. So, you admit it. Jensen's pretty much perfect, and you're already half in love with him, but you're chicken shit to do anything about it because, what? It might like, work out or something?"
"Or something," Jared mumbles.
"There are other things, you know. In life. Like. Like friends and family and being a good person and shit. That's, you know, it's not unimportant."
Chad looks serious about this. Chad. Looks serious. Jared wonders briefly if the world is about to end. Maybe the Christians are right about that whole rapture thing after all, and this is the first sign of the apocalypse.
Or maybe. Maybe Chad's kind of right.
*
It turns out that campaigning for a candidate who could maybe possibly win an election is actually really hard work, which Jensen sort of wasn't planning on when he decided to get in on this whole caring about Issues thing. He just thought he'd pass out some fliers, or possibly buttons with the guy's weird-ass face on them, maybe hang around the Whole Foods collecting signatures for… something or other, he's not sure what they'd need signed, but hey, there always seems to be someone wanting him to sign petitions so he just figured that must be a thing.
Only it isn't. Instead, he's going door to door trying to raise last-minute money (for what, he has no idea, but he hopes in involves some sort of big victory party with lots of booze, and possibly some pretty dancing boys, too) or sending out mailings or collecting poll data, because Texas has early voting so they can already start asking people how they voted. Which seems sort of like cheating to Jensen, but mostly it's just hard, frustrating work, and he doesn't know how Jared can stand it.
And the sucky thing is, he still hasn't seen Jared at headquarters, because Jared's apparently spending all his time at TeleFund and Jensen really really hopes that he's not like, seeing that kid from the party, the animal lover or whatever, because that. That would suck even more, especially after Jensen went to all the trouble to like, care about politics and stuff.
Because when it's not totally sucking with the polling and the data entry and the door-to-dooring, it's actually kind of exciting in a weirdly nerdy, Jared kind of way. He mainly follows Allison around a lot, because she's been volunteering here for months and can get him the least suck jobs, which means he has to listen to her rants about Rick Perry and how terrible he is and how he's ruining Texas, and then, well. Jensen sort of kind of starts to like… care. And he kind of wants Kinky to win. And not just because his name is Kinky, either.
The day before the election, Jensen doesn't sleep. He has a late shift at the restaurant, and then it's back home to shower the grease smell off before he heads over with Mike to headquarters. Mike hates politics and doesn't think anything is worth doing unless he's in charge, but his company got hired to do the decorations and shit for the election day party, which means Mike gets to inflate balloons all night. Jensen goes with him just to go, because he feels weird and excited and itchy, and there's no way he could sleep. Instead he helps Mike fill balloons, and only inhales helium a few times, and even refrains from saying 'motherfucker' more than five times when his voice is all squeaky and high.
People start showing up around five thirty, bleary-eyed and drinking coffee from paper cups, just as Mike and some of his crew get out the ladders to hang the balloons and shit. They're setting up a drop, too, which is pretty cool, but Jensen doesn't stick around to watch because Jared shows up.
Jared shows up, sees Jensen, and looks like maybe hell had an ice storm on the same day that monkeys flew and it was revealed that Dick Cheney really is a cylon.
"Jensen? The fuck are you doing here, man?"
Jensen bites his lip and shrugs. "I just, you know. Been volunteering and stuff. Helping out."
"I didn't. Why haven't I seen you here before?"
"Maybe you weren't. You know. Looking, or something."
Jared looks like he wants to say something else, but it's way too early for this conversation and Jensen is way too not ready to have it, so instead he pulls Jared over to where Allison is getting teams ready to head to the polls and make sure people are being allowed to vote. They don't have too much trouble in Texas with poll busters because of the early voting, but after Ohio two years ago, it never hurts to be safe. Jensen can't even believe he knows all that. He really is turning into the biggest dork ever, and will possibly need to commit suicide once this is all over.
"Oh, great," Allison says, looking at her clipboard. "You two head down to the H.E.B. on Oltorff, that's going to be a big one. And then later, we rented some petty cabs, so we might need you to pick people up from their houses and bike them to the polling stations, okay?"
Jensen tries not to think about how weird it is to be doing this with Jared. This was kind of the point of the whole thing in the first place-to get Jared to notice that he's like, not just about himself and he can care about other shit too-but now that's happening, it feels. Weird. Awkward. It doesn't help that Jared keeps giving him these freaked out looks the entire car ride over to the H.E.B.
But once they get there, there's not really time to think anyway. There's barely time to eat once the petty cabs get there and Jensen spends most of the day biking around town, carting old people to and from the polling stations. He votes at lunchtime, and it's pretty exciting that he actually knows most of the names on the ballot. He and Jared don't talk, because Jared's taking exit poll data and just eating an apple in between times, so really, there's just no time, and then the polls are closing and Allison shows up to take them back to headquarters.
They still don't talk, but Jared is looking at him again, less freaked out and more assessing, until they get back to headquarters and Jared drags him into the break room and locks the door behind them.
*
"So. So what's all this about, Jensen?" Jared doesn't know what to think. He's maybe freaking out though, just a little. It's like his whole world view, in which Jensen did nothing and just another pretty guy who was fun to hang out with and nothing more, suddenly got flipped on its side and now. Now he doesn't know what to think, like, at all.
Jensen shrugs. "It's. I thought about what you said, you know? About being like, shallow and stuff? And that maybe you were kind of right. So I decided to do something."
"Um. Okay? I just." Jared sighs and bites his lip. This is weird. This isn't how things were supposed to go. But Jensen's standing there, looking all earnest and concerned and hopeful, and today he spent hours shuttling old ladies around the city just so they could vote, and he's sort of. Damnit. Chad was right, after all. Jared was maybe sort of half in love with Jensen already, and now. Now it's like, maybe all the way. Maybe.
"You just?"
"I. Nothing. You didn't have to do this, you know."
Jensen stares at his shoes. "I kind of did, though. I mean. You were right, really. So, yeah."
"That's. I'm glad," Jared says, and then steps forward, right into Jensen's space, backs him up against the counter by the coffeepot, and kisses him.
"Mmmph," says Jensen.
"Yeah," Jared says, and does it again.
It's just as good as Jared remembered. Hot and perfect and Jensen is a mad-good kisser. They're making out in the break room while everyone else is waiting for the preliminaries to come in, but Jared can't even make himself care about the election right now, because all he can think about is this, and Jensen's hips pressed against his and their dicks rubbing together and how, really, people wear way too many clothes. There should be less clothes, or maybe no clothes at all, especially where Jensen is concerned.
And then Jensen does this thing, this neck-licking thing that drives Jared pretty much insane, because the next thing he knows, he has Jensen's pants shoved down off his hips and Jensen's dick in his hand, and yes. This, he thinks as he jacks Jensen fast and slick, is pretty much the best thing that ever existed, until Jensen shoves his hand down Jared's pants and curls his fingers around his dick, and then that right there is the best thing ever.
"Here, let me-" Jensen yanks at the buttons on Jared's jeans with his free hand, and that's even better, Jared thrusting into Jensen's fist, hot and tight and so fucking good, and the feel of Jensen against his palm, slick with precome and slightly pulsing in his hand. It's just. Amazing and perfect and then Jensen licks his way into Jared's mouth and they're kissing again, or almost kissing, sharing breath and lips sliding against each other. Jensen gasps and bites down on Jared's lip and Jared can feel him coming hot over his hand.
"Yeah," Jensen says, and, "Jared. Come on. Want. Want to see you." And then Jensen's squeezing slow and Jared shudders and maybe makes a really loud noise as he comes, which makes Jensen laugh and kiss him again, going, "Shhhh, J. We don't wanna get kicked out before the champagne and dancing boys get here."
Jared shivers and feels his dick twitching still in Jensen's hand, breathes out heavy on a laugh. "Wait. There's gonna be dancing boys?"
"Dude," Jensen says with a wide smile, "isn't that what elections are all about? I mean, he's not called Kinky for nothing, right?"
"Right," Jared says, and smiles back. So, Chad was maybe right after all, in the long run, but it's not like Jared ever has to tell him that.
"Come on," Jensen says, rinsing off his hands and flicking the water in Jared's face. "Let's go back to the party. I want to see how it ends."
"Me too," Jared says, and smiles again. It's kind of hard to stop. He does want to see how it ends, but really, he thinks, this is just the beginning, and it's not unimportant.
THE END.
(being the second part of the 'what if they were just normal guys?' AU)
Continued from part one.
After the whole debacle thing with Jared, where he pretends like nothing happened between them and he somehow, impossibly, chooses not to remember their night of fantastic, mind-blowing sex, Jensen decides that it's maybe time to try out girls for a while. It helps that the new waitress at work, Tania, is conveniently ignoring all the gay vibes Jensen knows he exudes in like, fucking droves, or maybe waves, because he's pretty sure vibes can't grammatically exude in waves, but whatever. Point is. Point is, Tania is the most seriously clueless person Jensen's ever met, what with the not getting how obviously gay he is, but also with the way she dresses and how she still thinks it's trendy to dye her hair pink, so when she asks him out, he thinks, What the hell? And says yes.
And really, being straight is sort of cool. They go to the movies and no one stares at them. He can kiss her when they're standing in line for a show without worrying that some redneck is going to attack him with a baseball bat or a .44 later. He doesn't, but he could, if he wanted. Jensen tries not to consider the lack of kissing thing, or the fact that he has no desire whatsoever to touch her in a sexual manner. They're just going slow, he tells himself, because he's a gentleman. Er. And stuff.
"So, you're telling me you haven't even kissed?" Jared says, picking up an apple and examining it carefully for bruising. Jensen makes a face and sighs heavily. He's feeling very put upon, and damn Jared and his blackmailing tactics, getting him to go to the farmer's market, which he hates, just so he can watch Jared be really anal about his fruit and end up not buying anything anyway. It's not that he has anything against farmers, though. Jensen likes farmers, he grew up around farmers. But the market smells, to be honest, and there are always those hippy ladies trying to sell you their crappy tie-dyed clothing they made themselves. Jensen prefers machine-made clothes. And besides which, he doesn't trust hippies.
"What? No. I mean, we've kissed. Just not, you know, kissed. I told you, we're taking things slow. She's like, all shy or something."
"Uh huh. I'm sure that's it, Jen. Or-and this is just a theory-it could be that you're gay."
"Whatever, Mr. I Used to Date Women And Am Only Recently Gay. Who says I'm completely, one hundred percent, all the way gay? Maybe I'm only like, seventy three percent gay. And that means I'm just like, wasting the other twenty-three percent."
"Seventeen. And also? It doesn't work that way. I think it's disgusting, what you're doing to that poor girl."
"I'm not doing anything!"
"That's the point, dude. You're gonna give her a complex or something."
"Shut up. I can totally be straight. I like her. We like, hold hands and shit. We could like, get married someday maybe, and be all suburban normal people and live in Pflugerville and our kids could play football. I could get one of those buttons with our son's face on it that lights up and everything."
"You do know that having kids requires that you actually, like, fuck this chick, right?"
"You're such an asshole, Jared. Christ!"
"I'm just sayin.' Gotta recreate to procreate."
"Who says that? Do people say that? Is that like, a thing people say? Because if it is, people need to say something different, because that is totally lame."
"Avoidance is the second stage, dude."
"The second stage of what?"
Jared examines another apple, frowns, rubs at a spot with his t-shirt, and puts it back in the bin. "Exactly."
*
"See, this is what I'm talking about," Jared says, grunting a little as they haul the groceries up the steps to their apartment. "You're so fucking shallow, dude. You can't even see how pretending to be straight is like, an insult to everyone you know."
"I'm not shallow!" Jensen says. He thinks about it a little. He cares about things. Like. Like who's going to win this cycle of America's Next Top Model (the bulimic twin, he hopes, because that picture rocked) and whether the Killers are coming to Austin on tour this time. Oh. Right. "Oh. Right. Okay well, yeah, maybe, but that doesn't mean I don't care about other stuff."
"Like what, Jensen? You don't even vote. You wouldn't even come to Pride with me last month, and there were parades full of hot, half naked guys there."
"I care about my friends. And um. My family, and stuff."
"When's the last time you talked to Chris?"
"Well. Okay but, I'm not the one who pretends we never had awesome, mind-blowing sex. So there."
Jared rolls his eyes and starts putting groceries away. He slams the cabinet doors open and shut, and it's very loud. "Dude, I told you. We're just different. I think this proves it. You don't care about anything important."
"Wait-that's why? Seriously? Jared, that's so fucking retarded. You're honestly telling me that the reason you won't have sex with me again is because I'm not all political and shit?"
"What part of 'You're too shallow' was unclear?"
"Dude, I thought you were joking. I mean, not ha-ha joking, but you know. Just making shit up because you didn't want to like, ruin our friendship or something."
"See, this is what I mean. You're like a fucking alien, man. Let's. Look, let's just drop it. I can't even hardly remember it, anyway. We were so wasted. Let's just. Wanna play some Halo?"
"No," Jensen says, but he turns on the Xbox and slumps down into the couch anyway. He doesn't think about what Jared said, even though he's sure Jared is lying because no one can fuck like that and just forget about it. Besides, Jensen has a girlfriend. It doesn't matter anyway.
*
In retrospect, taking Tania to Chris and Steve's show that night probably was not his best idea ever.
"So, you know he's gay, right?" Chris says, taking a long swallow from his beer. Tania just blinks.
"Okay," she says, and shrugs. "So, you know you're an asshole, right?"
Chris grins and raises his beer to her. "Amen, sister. A-fucking-men. I like her, Jenny. She's a keeper."
Jensen does what he usually does in situations like this, which is pretend that nothing ever happened and hope that the other parties involved have conveniently contracted amnesia. He could explain himself, but really, what would be the point, and besides which, Tania doesn't seem terribly surprised and she doesn't treat him any differently, either. They watch the show, and Mike has to leave halfway through for some balloon-twisting gig (which, who does that as a job, really? Except that now, Mike can always make these awesome balloon crowns that are really pretty impressive, if incredibly gay), so Tommy ends up telling Tania about his latest fluffing job and the disgusting old man he had to blow for like ten years just to get him hard.
Tania just smiles and nods and commiserates about guys who take forever and aching jaws and stuff (which never happens to Jensen, he thinks, probably because he's an amazing cocksucker and Tommy and Tania both obviously need lessons or something), and she's cool. She's amazingly cool, except that when Jensen tries to kiss her goodnight at her door, and not even slipping her the tongue because he's polite and a gentleman and shit, she turns her head so he just gets her cheek, and he doesn't feel relieved at all. Nope.
"Listen, Jensen. I really like you. But you know we're just friends, right?" She laughs. "I mean-come on."
Jensen narrows his eyes. He's not glaring, because that would be rude, especially to the future mother of his unborn but no doubt gorgeous children, but his eyes are maybe slitted, and he's feeling sort of surly. He thinks she's maybe dumping him, which is just. No.
"Come on, what? We're. I thought, you know. You like me."
"Jensen, you're gay."
"I'm not! I'm totally straight. I love women. I love fu-doing stuff. With them."
"Jensen. Have you ever even had sex with a woman? You won't even kiss me."
"We kiss all the time! Like, constantly. My lips get tired, we kiss so much!"
"We've kissed three times. Without tongue."
"But. You were going to be my babies' momma. We were going to live in Pflugerville."
"You know you're insane, right?"
Jensen does glare this time, because fuck this bitch, she is so not good enough to be the mother of his theoretical children, and she laughs.
He gives her the finger. "I hate you."
She grins. "No you don't. And also-Pflugerville? Seriously?"
"I really hate you."
*
Election day is only a month away, so even though he's definitely not avoiding Jensen or anything because they're friends and that's it and the whole awkward morning-after thing is totally of the past, Jared spends all his time at the call center or volunteering for Kinky Friedman's campaign or passing out fliers for proposition six to fund the libraries, because he likes libraries, and yeah. But it's not an avoidance thing. He's just busy, and he cares about a lot of things, and this is an important election.
Jeff gave up on trying to stop Jared from coming in to the call center on his off shifts, but the night that Jared refuses to leave until he makes one more positive contact, which is taking forever because apparently everyone in the state of California is too busy watching the season premier of Lost to be willing to talk about the state of American politics or, you know, just give him some money already, Jeff freaks out.
Well, he doesn't freak out exactly. Like, not in a normal person freak out way, because Jeff is pretty much the chillest guy Jared has ever met. He's one of those guys that nothing ruffles, pretty much ever, which makes him really good at his job because he has to deal with a lot of crazy kids and angry people who no longer want anything to do with animal rights/gay rights/human rights/saving the environment and have decided to blame Jeff for their name being on the lists.
So yeah, Jeff is cool, he's chill, except that night, he freaks out a little. By which Jared means, Jeff walks over to his station, presses the 'end call' button on Jared's headset, disconnects him from the system with a few quick keystrokes, and walks away without a word.
"Dude, what the hell? I was on a call, man! You just-"
"Go home, Jared," Jeff says. He sounds tired. It's crunch time, of course he sounds tired. Which is all the more reason that Jared should stay. "Go home, and stop being such a jerk about Jensen."
"I'm not. It's not like-" He gets cut off by Jeff flicking him off and switching out the lights. Jared makes an angry sound, but really, he can't blame Jeff for wanting him out of here. It's-wow-really late, and no wonder not even the Californians were answering their phones. The bike ride home takes longer than usual because Jared can't seem to concentrate, and maybe, possibly, he might be stalling because he knows that when he gets home, Jensen will be there, and they should probably talk, or something. Jared knows he's right about this, because seriously, he can't get involved with someone who doesn't even know the difference between Kinky Friedman and Rick Perry aside from, "Dude, that's a kick ass name. If I voted, I would totally go for him." He just can't. But that doesn't make it feel good, or easy, and lately, it's getting hard to even look at Jensen. They used to be friends, and then they had to go and ruin it with great sex, and now he can't even look at him. So yeah, they need to talk. Jared wonders if he can do it with his eyes closed.
When he finally gets home, Jensen's not even there. Chad's on the couch playing Grand Theft Auto again and drinking one of Jensen's diet cokes, but Jensen's not there.
"Someone called in sick," Chad grunts, biting his lip as he pounds on the controller buttons. "He's at work. They're like, letting him wait tables or something. It was sick how excited he was about it."
"Oh," Jared says, and shrugs. "Huh." He feels itchy. Charged. He thought Jensen would be home.
"Yeah. Man, I don't know why you hang out with that kid. He's such a freak."
"Yeah," Jared says. "I think. I'm just gonna go to bed. I'm wiped, man."
Chad waves him off, not looking away from the screen. But once he's in bed, Jared just stares at the ceiling for a long time and thinks, maybe Jensen's not the one who's a freak.
*
If there's one thing Jensen really loves about working at the restaurant, it's getting paid overtime to wait tables super late at night, because hey, more money, but also, lots of cute, drunk boys who just got kicked out of the clubs. They always flirt with Jensen because he's pretty, and sometimes, if Cathy isn't there, he'll take one of them out back on his break and blow him while their food is being prepared. He always gets big tips, even though he's a shitty waiter and sometimes (read: always) drops things. Jensen likes to think it has less to do with his willingness to suck total strangers' dicks and more his charming personality. Plus, he likes to lie to himself.
There are lots of cute boys that night, and Cathy is gone, long gone, and then one of them, the one with lots of smudged eyeliner who's wearing a sleeveless shirt to show off his pretty scary-looking tattoos, stumbles up to the drinks station wanting to know where the bathroom is, so it's really sort of a matter of fate that Jensen ends up on his knees in the men's room.
And Jensen, he loves sucking dick, and this guy has a really nice one, too. If dicks could be considered pretty, this one would win like, the Miss Universe pageant for dick beauty. And it's all great, the guy isn't rude or anything, and he makes these awesome breath-hitching noises when Jensen does that thing with his tongue, except.
Except that Jensen's just not into it. Like, at all.
Here he is, with a lovely cock in his mouth and a pretty boy staring down at him like he's the best thing since the invention of the mojito, and… nothing. His dick doesn't even twitch, not even just a little, and he finds himself wishing the guy would hurry up and come already because he's got tables to wait and tips to make and-
Jensen's pretty sure this is all Jared's fault.
He can't stop thinking about Jared and his stupid lectures about being shallow and how he thinks all Jensen wants out of life is, well, this right here. Which is maybe sort of true, and he used to be more than okay with it, happy, even, or at least content, but now Jared, that little mind-fucker, has made him think there's maybe something wrong with that. Or something.
And now he can't even enjoy sucking dick, and it's all Jared's fault.
*
Chris is Jensen's best friend in the world, but really, there should be a law against aspiring musicians working at snooty, independent record stores that won't even carry the new Justin Timberlake, because it only makes them even more annoyingly arrogant. Jensen loves Chris, he really does, but him landing this job at Waterloo has made him quite possibly the most insufferable person pretty much ever to have lived. Like, imagine Jack Black's character from High Fidelity when he's all refusing to sell the old man the Stevie Wonder record (which, what's up with that, because Stevie is awesome), only multiply it times ten and you've got Chris.
He didn't used to be such a music snob asshole. Jensen still remembers 1999, when Chris was obsessed with Garth Brooks and made Jensen listen to the double live album over and over again. It's pretty much why they had to stop living together. Because if Jensen had to listen to 'The Dance' even one more time, he would've strangled Chris in his sleep. Slowly. Maybe he would've taken up the entire song just for the strangling, and that is a long ass song.
But now all Chris will listen to are bands no one's ever heard of, and he does that thing that snooty sales clerks do, where they like, judge what you're buying. Sometimes he tries to keep people from buying things by being really mean to them about it. This is what he's doing when Jensen walks into Waterloo the next day. And really, Jensen doesn't want to be there, in the den of Chris's music assholishness, but he has needs, and Jared is fucking with his head, so yeah.
"Y'all aren't really going to buy this, are you?" he's asking the teenage girl in front of the counter, who's holding her Hello Kitty purse like she maybe wants to smack Chris with it. "I mean, seriously, Panic! At the Disco? What kind of name is that for a band? With the exclamation point and everything." He shakes his head, examining the case. "Who uses punctuation in their band name? That's just lame."
"I like them," the girl says, glaring. "Just sell me the damn CD, okay?"
"With that kinda attitude, maybe I shouldn't," Chris says. "Man, look at these assholes! What kind of man wears that much eyeliner? If you're gonna go for queers in make up, honey, you should just stick with David Bowie. Plus, glitter."
"Can someone else help me? You suck. I just want my CD!"
Chris shakes his head and slips the CD beneath the counter. "Go to Target and buy it. I'm sorry, but I really can't sell that kinda trash here. It would ruin our reputation."
The girl storms off, and Jensen rolls his eyes and ducks behind the counter. "Dude, that was cruel."
"Whatever man. They suck. Probably each other."
Jensen coughs. "About that. Thanks for fucking things up with Tania the other night. She dumped me because of you, you asshole."
Chris just laughs. "Y'all were never going out, Jenny. You're a raging homosexual. I thought you'd gotten used to that fact, the number of dicks you've had in you over the years."
"You're just jealous because I never sucked yours."
Chris starts stickering a stack of CDs that he will probably later refuse to sell to people. "Nah, baby. You gotta nice mouth, but I'm more than capable of finding myself a woman for that. Because I am not a raging homosexual. Speaking of, you think Tania would go out with me?"
"You wouldn't like her. She listens to Liz Phair."
"Good point. So what're you doing here? I thought you were never setting foot in the store again after the Nick Carter Incident."
"You didn't have to tell the whole store about my… thing… when you didn't even have the CD in the first place!"
"I really did." He grins. "So, what's up? You look like hell froze over and then got reheated on your face, boy. You all right?"
"Yeah. I mean. No. Unless you think that not being able to even enjoy blowing really cute goth boys is okay. Then yeah, in which case, I'm great."
"So it's serious, then, huh?"
"It's. Remember that night? The party, and the thing with Jared?"
"The sex that he's pretending not to remember? Son, maybe that's just because you suck in bed. No pun intended."
"Shut the fuck up, dude. It's. Yeah, the sex. Only, he says that I'm like, shallow or something? And like, I don't care about anything important, or whatever?"
"Well…"
"Dude, you're my best friend! You're not supposed to agree with that shit!"
"It's not that I agree, Jenny. It's that he's sort of right. Man, never thought I'd say that. Look, we've known each other for a long time, so I know I can say this to you and you won't take it the wrong way. Jensen, you're a fucking dishwasher, man. Just think about that for a minute, okay? You wash dishes for a living. Guy like Jared, he needs more than that. He's like, passionate about shit. He likes causes. So if you want him to like you…"
"I should-what? Like, get a cause or something?"
"Or something." Chris smiles wide and nudges Jensen with his hip. "Come on now, help me get these bitches stickered, and then I can take my break. You look like you could use some ice cream. Amy's has that Guiness flavor again."
"Dude seriously?"
"Seriously."
"I love you, man."
"You bet your ass you do."
*
Jared's not avoiding Jensen on purpose anymore, but the next few weeks are so busy with the upcoming election that they don't really see each other anyway. Things at the call center are insane because seven people quit and all the new kids suck so far, so Jared's been working overtime to get the new people trained and up to scratch while still making his quota. Plus he's still volunteering for Kinky Friedman, even though it's pretty much a lost cause with the already small democratic vote split between three candidates. Fucking Rick Perry is going to get re-elected, but there's no way in hell they're going down without a fight.
That's what his generation doesn't seem to get-that it doesn't matter if you think you're going to win or lose, the process is just as important as the results. Because like, if you never exercise your rights as a citizen, than what's even the point of having them in the first place?
So Jared's not avoiding Jensen on purpose, but it's not until the night of Mike and Tommy's annual Halloween party that Jared gets to spend any significant amount of time with him.
"Dude, what are you even wearing?" Jared asks, coming out of the bathroom with his Richard Nixon mask dangling from his fingers. Jensen's lounging on the couch waiting for Jared and Chad to finish getting ready, dressed in, well, a sheet. And sandals. And he seems to have randomly gelled some leaves from Jared's fern into his hair. "Are you supposed to be like… some kind of psychotic roman toga guy?"
Jensen frowns and looks down at himself. "Oh, is this a costume party?" He grins and gives Jared the finger. "Anyway, what are you? Let me guess-dead ex-president?"
"I'm Nixon." Jared holds up the mask. "At least I tried, dude. You're just wearing a sheet."
Chad comes out of Jensen's bathroom wearing a white and pink striped suit with a giant rhinestone cross around his neck and a floppy purple hat.
"I'm a pimp," he says.
"So you're not dressing up either, huh?"
"Fuck you, Ackles, my costume rocks. Now let's go get fucked up. And can y'all refrain from having sex this time, because it's like, when you fight? I feel like my parents are getting divorced all over again, and then I cry. On the inside."
The party is in full swing when they cross the courtyard to Tommy and Mike's place. Tommy is standing by the keg dressed as Superman, or at least Jared thinks he's supposed to be Superman what with the blue bikini briefs and red cape, but he could just be still wearing his work clothes. And then Mike emerges from the back room waving a tube of lipstick triumphantly, and makes Tommy stand still while he draws a giant, wobbly 'S' on his bare chest. Mike is wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but he has a stick-on nametag that says, "Tommy."
"There," says Mike. "Now people will know who you're supposed to be. But man, Jensen. What the hell are you dressed as?"
"Is this a costume party?" Jensen says again, and Jared just knows that he's going to be hearing that all night, and he's already sick of it. On the other hand, Jensen looks way too fucking hot in that toga, and Jared finds himself wondering if Jensen's wearing anything underneath it. Except that he's totally not wondering that at all, because Jensen's is just his friend and the sex thing didn't work out because of the whole part where Jensen's is a freaking dishwasher who doesn't give a shit about anything except his next fuck, so. Yeah.
"I think we should do shots," Jared finds himself declaring, because he is most definitely not thinking about things which may or may not be beneath Jensen's toga. Like, at all. Which is how he finds himself drunk out of his mind by eleven o'clock, when Sandy shows up dressed as a dead hooker complete with a fake knife sticking out of her chest, three very cute guys trailing after her, possibly also dressed as hookers, but maybe not in costume at all.
Cute guy number one is named JT, which is slightly weird because that's what Jared's mama calls him, but he's really into animal rights and thinks factory farming is the worst thing to come out of the industrial revolution (Jared thinks it's probably nuclear weapons, but whatever), plus he's a really good kisser. Jared knows because after talking to JT for about fifteen minutes, he gets sort of grossed out hearing about the many ways in which animals are tortured so that they can become bacon or bacon-like products that he decided to shut the kid up. By kissing him. It makes sense at the time, because Jared is drunk, and the guy is hot.
There's something really hot about making out with strangers on couches at parties with like, your friends all talking and laughing and drinking around you while dressed as hookers or sometimes each other. JT is like, practically in Jared's lap, and he's hot and wearing some sort of mesh shirt that feels really cool against Jared's palms, and his tongue is hot too, and they're just kissing and kissing and it's awesome, and he doesn't think about Jensen.
*
Sandy, Jensen decides, is a total cunt and he hates her.
Normally Jensen would be happy with her bringing hot gay boys to a party, getting them trashed, and sending them off to hook up with her friends. Except when they actually accomplish said hooking up and it's not with him, and then Jared spends the night making out with some random guy who's not even half as pretty as Jensen just because he's like, into animal rights or something.
Which is totally not fair, because Jensen is trying. He's like, volunteering for this crazyass cowboy running for governor, which is all political and everything, plus Jensen knows Jared's volunteering for this guy too, so. He's been trying to orchestrate some sort of run-in, except that headquarters are so busy and Jared hasn't been in since Jensen started because of the blow up at TeleFund with all the new people, so really, the whole getting political idea has done nothing but lost Jensen precious time perfecting his Pro Skater skills, which means that now, when he finally does get to play, Chad beats him every time.
Then again, Chad is an unemployed loser who also doesn't care about shit, so at least he's not a threat for Jared's affection, which is more than Jensen can say for Animal Planet goth boy. Jensen wonders if maybe pulling a Brutus would be ill-conceived, although at least then people might get his costume.
What he does know is, he needs to be way drunker than he is right now, if he's going to have to watch this all night. It's. It's disgusting, and there are tongues involved, which he knows because he can see them. The guy looks like a terrible kisser, very sloppy on the execution and zero points for style, and really, Jensen should probably go over and save Jared from him. Jared would maybe be grateful for not having to make out with that guy anymore, which he's probably just doing because he's like, all polite and shit, and then maybe he'd make out with Jensen instead and-
"Boy, don't even think about it," Chris says from behind him, which makes Jensen screech and spill his beer.
"You fucker. I need a new drink now."
"What you need," Chris says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and leading him toward the kitchen, "is some serious tequila. Come on son, he ain't even worth it."
"Fuck you," Jensen says, and makes the mistake of looking back at the couch, where Jared's got his hand up goth boy's shirt and, yeah, he looks really into it, which makes Jensen's chest sort of burn, like he already took his shot and it's just sitting there. Jensen swallows and turns back to Chris, nods. He blinks and licks his lips and stares hard at the tequila bottle label, which has pretty colors and makes him think about the beach, which is good because he's never been to the beach with Jared. Jared doesn't surf, so he never comes with them, and that's good, that's just him and Chris and Steve and the beach and the waves and nothing to do with Jared, but his chest still feels hot and achy, so Jensen downs his shot and sucks on his lime and he doesn't look back.
Sour, he thinks, and closes his eyes.
*
Jared wakes up the next morning because someone is kicking him. No, not someone-Chad-and he has these really pointy shoes on, too. The pimp shoes. He's also dribbling water on Jared's head, and giggling to himself.
"Are you awake?" Chad asks. Kick. Kick. Dribble.
"Fuck off."
"Come on, let's go get breakfast. I'm hungry."
Jared rolls over onto his back and blinks up at the ceiling. Tommy and Mike's ceiling, because apparently he fell asleep on the floor of their kitchen, somehow, which is weird because the last thing he remembers is licking peppermint schnapps of some guy's stomach, and possibly tortured animals were involved. Hmm, no, that doesn't sound right.
"What happened to…" Jared flops his hand around. That's about all the energy he can muster. He doesn't even flinch when Chad kicks him again. He thinks that maybe the alcohol somehow paralyzed him, or at least took away his will to do things that aren't lie here and feel like he's dying, because. Yeah.
"The twink you spent all night molesting?"
"Uh. Sure."
"Don't know, don't care. Because, dude. We need pancakes! And bacon. Mmmm bacon."
"Do you even know how horrible factory farming is for the environment? And um, mean to the animals and shit?"
"The bacon is its destiny, dude. Just give in to it. Come on, seriously, let's go. I'm starving, and I am not going to Magnolia alone like a loser."
Once Jared manages to get upright, he feels a little better. They steal Mike's car (but Mike and Tommy are passed out together in Mike's room, pretty much naked, which is way more of Mike's bare ass than Jared ever wanted to see, so he doesn't think Mike will care) and drive over because it's still like eighty degrees out and there's no way Jared could operate a bike right now. Chad drives (like a crazy person), and it's only when Jared is signing their name on the waiting list that he remembers that Jensen works here.
"Dude, he's in the back if he's even here," Chad says when he notices Jared's deer-in-headlights look. Jared wishes that Chad would stop that freaky mind-reading shit. "And anyway, why do you look so freaked? He's like, your best friend, right?"
"You're my best friend." Jared really should become a politician, he thinks. He's very good at not answering questions.
"Whatever, man." Chad drops it, except that Jared should really know better, because when they finally get seated and have coffee and everything, Chad stares at him hard over his menu and just gives him that look, the one that's all, You're so full of shit, you don't even know it. Except that he sort of does.
"What?" Jared says defensively, and his eyes do not flick toward the kitchen, where Jensen may or may not be washing dishes right now.
"Look," Chad says, and sets down his menu like this is really serious. "I'm only gonna say this once, because you're my friend and no matter how fun it is to watch you be all emo tragic guy, it's getting to a psychotically annoying point. Stop being such a retard."
"Dude, that's so not cool. You can't just call people 'retards,' Chad. What if one day you do that, and that person is like, actually retarded?"
"Then I won't be wrong. But seriously, this Jensen thing, whatever it is? Get over it, man. I mean, I give him a lot of shit, right, but he's good people. Plus, I've heard he's a bunny in the sack."
"You mean tiger?"
"See? You're totally hot for him. You think he's a tiger in the sack."
"But that. Chad. It's not like that. I mean, okay, he's like, a fucking dishwasher. I mean, seriously, he washes dishes for a living. We're too different. Or whatever."
Chad looks faintly ill. "Okay, I can't believe I'm defending that douche bag, but seriously, Jared, that's your excuse? You know what I think?"
"Let me guess. Some psych 101 analysis of like, why I have intimacy issues or something?"
"Okay, good guess. So, you admit it. Jensen's pretty much perfect, and you're already half in love with him, but you're chicken shit to do anything about it because, what? It might like, work out or something?"
"Or something," Jared mumbles.
"There are other things, you know. In life. Like. Like friends and family and being a good person and shit. That's, you know, it's not unimportant."
Chad looks serious about this. Chad. Looks serious. Jared wonders briefly if the world is about to end. Maybe the Christians are right about that whole rapture thing after all, and this is the first sign of the apocalypse.
Or maybe. Maybe Chad's kind of right.
*
It turns out that campaigning for a candidate who could maybe possibly win an election is actually really hard work, which Jensen sort of wasn't planning on when he decided to get in on this whole caring about Issues thing. He just thought he'd pass out some fliers, or possibly buttons with the guy's weird-ass face on them, maybe hang around the Whole Foods collecting signatures for… something or other, he's not sure what they'd need signed, but hey, there always seems to be someone wanting him to sign petitions so he just figured that must be a thing.
Only it isn't. Instead, he's going door to door trying to raise last-minute money (for what, he has no idea, but he hopes in involves some sort of big victory party with lots of booze, and possibly some pretty dancing boys, too) or sending out mailings or collecting poll data, because Texas has early voting so they can already start asking people how they voted. Which seems sort of like cheating to Jensen, but mostly it's just hard, frustrating work, and he doesn't know how Jared can stand it.
And the sucky thing is, he still hasn't seen Jared at headquarters, because Jared's apparently spending all his time at TeleFund and Jensen really really hopes that he's not like, seeing that kid from the party, the animal lover or whatever, because that. That would suck even more, especially after Jensen went to all the trouble to like, care about politics and stuff.
Because when it's not totally sucking with the polling and the data entry and the door-to-dooring, it's actually kind of exciting in a weirdly nerdy, Jared kind of way. He mainly follows Allison around a lot, because she's been volunteering here for months and can get him the least suck jobs, which means he has to listen to her rants about Rick Perry and how terrible he is and how he's ruining Texas, and then, well. Jensen sort of kind of starts to like… care. And he kind of wants Kinky to win. And not just because his name is Kinky, either.
The day before the election, Jensen doesn't sleep. He has a late shift at the restaurant, and then it's back home to shower the grease smell off before he heads over with Mike to headquarters. Mike hates politics and doesn't think anything is worth doing unless he's in charge, but his company got hired to do the decorations and shit for the election day party, which means Mike gets to inflate balloons all night. Jensen goes with him just to go, because he feels weird and excited and itchy, and there's no way he could sleep. Instead he helps Mike fill balloons, and only inhales helium a few times, and even refrains from saying 'motherfucker' more than five times when his voice is all squeaky and high.
People start showing up around five thirty, bleary-eyed and drinking coffee from paper cups, just as Mike and some of his crew get out the ladders to hang the balloons and shit. They're setting up a drop, too, which is pretty cool, but Jensen doesn't stick around to watch because Jared shows up.
Jared shows up, sees Jensen, and looks like maybe hell had an ice storm on the same day that monkeys flew and it was revealed that Dick Cheney really is a cylon.
"Jensen? The fuck are you doing here, man?"
Jensen bites his lip and shrugs. "I just, you know. Been volunteering and stuff. Helping out."
"I didn't. Why haven't I seen you here before?"
"Maybe you weren't. You know. Looking, or something."
Jared looks like he wants to say something else, but it's way too early for this conversation and Jensen is way too not ready to have it, so instead he pulls Jared over to where Allison is getting teams ready to head to the polls and make sure people are being allowed to vote. They don't have too much trouble in Texas with poll busters because of the early voting, but after Ohio two years ago, it never hurts to be safe. Jensen can't even believe he knows all that. He really is turning into the biggest dork ever, and will possibly need to commit suicide once this is all over.
"Oh, great," Allison says, looking at her clipboard. "You two head down to the H.E.B. on Oltorff, that's going to be a big one. And then later, we rented some petty cabs, so we might need you to pick people up from their houses and bike them to the polling stations, okay?"
Jensen tries not to think about how weird it is to be doing this with Jared. This was kind of the point of the whole thing in the first place-to get Jared to notice that he's like, not just about himself and he can care about other shit too-but now that's happening, it feels. Weird. Awkward. It doesn't help that Jared keeps giving him these freaked out looks the entire car ride over to the H.E.B.
But once they get there, there's not really time to think anyway. There's barely time to eat once the petty cabs get there and Jensen spends most of the day biking around town, carting old people to and from the polling stations. He votes at lunchtime, and it's pretty exciting that he actually knows most of the names on the ballot. He and Jared don't talk, because Jared's taking exit poll data and just eating an apple in between times, so really, there's just no time, and then the polls are closing and Allison shows up to take them back to headquarters.
They still don't talk, but Jared is looking at him again, less freaked out and more assessing, until they get back to headquarters and Jared drags him into the break room and locks the door behind them.
*
"So. So what's all this about, Jensen?" Jared doesn't know what to think. He's maybe freaking out though, just a little. It's like his whole world view, in which Jensen did nothing and just another pretty guy who was fun to hang out with and nothing more, suddenly got flipped on its side and now. Now he doesn't know what to think, like, at all.
Jensen shrugs. "It's. I thought about what you said, you know? About being like, shallow and stuff? And that maybe you were kind of right. So I decided to do something."
"Um. Okay? I just." Jared sighs and bites his lip. This is weird. This isn't how things were supposed to go. But Jensen's standing there, looking all earnest and concerned and hopeful, and today he spent hours shuttling old ladies around the city just so they could vote, and he's sort of. Damnit. Chad was right, after all. Jared was maybe sort of half in love with Jensen already, and now. Now it's like, maybe all the way. Maybe.
"You just?"
"I. Nothing. You didn't have to do this, you know."
Jensen stares at his shoes. "I kind of did, though. I mean. You were right, really. So, yeah."
"That's. I'm glad," Jared says, and then steps forward, right into Jensen's space, backs him up against the counter by the coffeepot, and kisses him.
"Mmmph," says Jensen.
"Yeah," Jared says, and does it again.
It's just as good as Jared remembered. Hot and perfect and Jensen is a mad-good kisser. They're making out in the break room while everyone else is waiting for the preliminaries to come in, but Jared can't even make himself care about the election right now, because all he can think about is this, and Jensen's hips pressed against his and their dicks rubbing together and how, really, people wear way too many clothes. There should be less clothes, or maybe no clothes at all, especially where Jensen is concerned.
And then Jensen does this thing, this neck-licking thing that drives Jared pretty much insane, because the next thing he knows, he has Jensen's pants shoved down off his hips and Jensen's dick in his hand, and yes. This, he thinks as he jacks Jensen fast and slick, is pretty much the best thing that ever existed, until Jensen shoves his hand down Jared's pants and curls his fingers around his dick, and then that right there is the best thing ever.
"Here, let me-" Jensen yanks at the buttons on Jared's jeans with his free hand, and that's even better, Jared thrusting into Jensen's fist, hot and tight and so fucking good, and the feel of Jensen against his palm, slick with precome and slightly pulsing in his hand. It's just. Amazing and perfect and then Jensen licks his way into Jared's mouth and they're kissing again, or almost kissing, sharing breath and lips sliding against each other. Jensen gasps and bites down on Jared's lip and Jared can feel him coming hot over his hand.
"Yeah," Jensen says, and, "Jared. Come on. Want. Want to see you." And then Jensen's squeezing slow and Jared shudders and maybe makes a really loud noise as he comes, which makes Jensen laugh and kiss him again, going, "Shhhh, J. We don't wanna get kicked out before the champagne and dancing boys get here."
Jared shivers and feels his dick twitching still in Jensen's hand, breathes out heavy on a laugh. "Wait. There's gonna be dancing boys?"
"Dude," Jensen says with a wide smile, "isn't that what elections are all about? I mean, he's not called Kinky for nothing, right?"
"Right," Jared says, and smiles back. So, Chad was maybe right after all, in the long run, but it's not like Jared ever has to tell him that.
"Come on," Jensen says, rinsing off his hands and flicking the water in Jared's face. "Let's go back to the party. I want to see how it ends."
"Me too," Jared says, and smiles again. It's kind of hard to stop. He does want to see how it ends, but really, he thinks, this is just the beginning, and it's not unimportant.
THE END.